a few aspects of schiaparelli's studies.sait.oat.ts.astro.it/mmsai/82/pdf/290.pdf · 2011. 6....

Mem. S.A.It. Vol. 82, 290c© SAIt 2011 Memorie della

A few aspects of Schiaparelli's studies.

S. De Meis

Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, Roma, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. A description of selected studies and professional achievements ofG.V.Schiaparelli reveals the vast fields of interest of the historian and scientist. His re-searche in Oriental languages, especially Cuneiform and Arabic, was parallel to an alwaysdeeper knowledge of mathematical and applied Astronomy with results that are valid evenat present. The discovery of asteroid 69 Hesperia is also commented.

Key words. History of Astronomy - Stars - Mars - Asteroids

1. Introduction

On January 1st, 1855 Schiaparelli, just in histwenties, began a collection of writings fora history of Mathematics; it was to be com-posed of 10 parts and 109 books, and obvi-ously included Physics and Astronomy. Thiswork, however, was never accomplished, but in1901 Schiaparelli put the basis for a history ofAncient Astronomy, for which he wrote essayson many other subjects that in 1926 were col-lected in “Scritti sulla Storia dell’ Astronomiaantica”, and that we have reprinted in Milan inSchiaparelli (1998).

The three volumes include a total of 1197pages that by themselves alone testify thedaily commitment of the scientist, and areto be added to the direction of the BreraObservatory, thousands of observations 1, cal-culations, and to the papers written for interna-tional journals, besides the unpublished worksthat cover a wide range of subjects, alwayswith new discoveries or considerations.

Send offprint requests to: S. De Meis1 He mentions, for example 11000 double star ob-

servations from 1875 to 1898 (ms.“Note e scritti divario argomento” at Brera Archive)

I have selected a few aspects ofSchiaparelli’s works that involve discov-eries, computations or details not muchknown, but that however presented points ofscientific novelty; also I shall briefly updatesome items that I covered in the Seminar heldat the Brera Observatory on 12 May 1997.

2. Oriental studies

Two Main lines directed the studies ofSchiaparelli: the history of ancient recordsand Astronomy. I believe, that the history ofAstronomy conceived by Schiaparelli is theclassical IΣTOPIHΣ AΠO∆EIΞIΣ, the publicdisplay of proofs, as Herodotus called it, in-tegrated by the careful computing of data toconfirm or reject previous interpretations. Thatis, to support his statements by the power ofnumbers. A way followed, for example, byDelambre, Wolf, Bailly, and especially OttoNeugebauer and B. van der Waerden.

This methodology requires full commandof theoretical and observational astronomy, be-sides the direct study of sources; and to thispurpose Schiaparelli started to teach himselfGreek, Arabic, Cuneiform, as well as basics of

De Meis: Schiaparelli’s studies 291

Fig. 1. A page from an Arabic grammar “di manodi G.V. Schiaparelli”.

Egyptian and Hebrew, in addition to the sev-eral European languages of which he had fullcommand. Fig. 1 is an example.

Incidentally, it is to note the importantastronomical comment by Schiaparelli to thefundamental work of Carlo Nallino on AlBattani Opus Astronomicum (Nallino 1903)with translation from Arabic to Latin. Thisfollows his systematic approach: the Breraarchive preserves neatly ordered notes on care-fully cut sheets of paper, line translations oforiginal texts, and notes on meanings; also, al-most a forerunner of ecology, he never wastedpaper: he wrote on the back of invitations,Senate notices, even of family letters. Othermanuscripts were bound in books. Thus it is in-teresting to have an inside look at his method-ology that requires the research of texts, de-scriptions, previous studies, and goes in deptheven of details.

An example will show his ability: Fig 2-left shows Craig’s careful copy of the BritishMuseum tablet Rm 105 (Obverse and Reverse)Virolleaud (1908). Fig. 2-right is the copy,transliteration and translation of tablet Rm 105,obverse, by Schiaparelli.

Schiaparelli showed that at his time manycuneiform ideograms were not identified as faras meaning or, if applicable, names of starsor planets were concerned. Hence he was notashamed to show his methodic approach andindicate his thoughts and doubts, just as Epping(1889) and Kugler (1907) had made in the

early assyriological research, when everythinghad to be proven by tentatives. Novelty isthe purpose of scientific papers, and he de-veloped methods and techniques to investigatenew ideas or data. A short quotation is in or-der. In 1996 I discovered that a notebook in theArchive of the Brera Observatory, in “CartellaN.426”, entitled “Nomi di stelle e di costel-lazioni e di pianeti presso i Babilonesi”, hadnever been studied before; perhaps it was be-lieved a simple list copied from elsewhere,although Schiaparelli wrote “Io ho raccoltosenza molta fatica piu di cento nomi di costel-lazioni, di gruppi minori di stelle e di stelleparticolari isolate” (Schiaparelli 1908) andpointed out the difficulties of identification.However, this is a true example of research ina field in development, such as Assyriology.

While at present some 400-plus names ofBabylonian stars are documented (Goessmann1950; Kurtik 2007), at Schiaparelli’s time

there were only those published by Epping andKugler (some 50); he identified 120 stars, di-rectly from the cuneiform names in the textsof Craig (1899), systematically analyzing theirposition relative to other known bodies or pe-culiar characteristics mentioned in the texts2,and, as we showed (De Meis 1999; Hunger1999), have also at present the meaning and

identification that Schiaparelli gave to them.A few words about the text Rm 105. It

concerns the heliacal phenomena of stars inthe various months. This phenomenon, nowrarely observed, had an enormous importancein Antiquity, for example in matters concern-ing calendars (seasons), archaeology (orienta-tion of monuments), literature (poems as theWorks and days of Hesiod, or the Fasti ofOvid), even commerce (contracts of insurancein Greece for goods shipped before or after therise of Arcturus as reported by Demosthenes 3.

The first line refers to the heliacal risingof a star MUL DIL.GAN in the month Nissan,now shown to be ASH.GAN2 = IKU. (Kurtik

2 Craig 1899. These and other ’astrological’ textswere indeed a source of many astronomical data forthe history of Ancient Astronomy

3 Demosthenes mentions interests of 22.5% be-fore the rising of Arcturus, 30% after it

292 De Meis: Schiaparelli’s studies

Fig. 2. Left: Cuneiform text of tablet Rm 105, by J.A.Craig. Right: Copy, transliteration and translation ofobverse of tablet Rm 105 by Schiaparelli.

2007). A most interesting example, moreover,is the ideogram MUL.MUL that was still tobe fully identified; it is composed of the re-peated word MUL (star), so that the meaningwas “the star-star”, “the star par excellence”, orthe plural of “star”, and was eventually recog-nized as the Pleiades. In this case, Schiaparellimade a list of details to help the search (DeMeis 1999; Hunger 1999), such as the monthof rising (Airu), the position with respect tothe ecliptic (the text said “it follows and pre-cedes the Moon”, then the star was close tothe ecliptic) or the vicinity to another star. Toidentify the correspondence of stars in modernastronomy, it is necessary to compute the datefor the location wanted, to guess the star’s co-ordinates, its arcus visionis, the status of the

air and other parameters. The best approachto the solution is to have more data, such asthe simultaneous rising (or setting) with an-other star. Lists of this type of phenomenaare in the MUL.APIN (List II), the astronomi-cal compendium in cuneiform, as Pingree andHunger have called it (Hunger 1999); theywrite (MUL.APIN, p.140) that this is “the mostsecure data that we have for identifying theconstellations”.

To confirm Schiaparelli’s care, he also liststhe texts that were published by Thompson(1900) (The reports in this book have beencommented and compared to the more recentHunger (1992), as well as in De Meis (1998)),Brunnow, Delitzsch, and the astronomical datathat he found in Craig.


Fig. 3. Sirius and Procyon: simultaneous rising

An interesting further calculation is foundin his notes: tablet K 2894 (K means fromKuyounjik) mentions that Sirius and an-other star, that Schiaparelli thought to beProcyon, rise simultaneously (ahamesh), hencehe wanted to compute the latitude where ingiven epochs such phenomenon could happen.To solve the problem he developed a set offormulae (an algorithm we would say today)that follows Ptolemy and is rather simple. Hecomputed (Schiaparelli, Cartella 426/001) thecoordinates of the stars from -4000 to +2000,applied his formulae and found that the phe-nomenon could not occur in any region of theEuphrates, before our Era. Hence it was not anobservation.

His manuscript reads: It results thatKAK.SI.DI = Sirius and ID.HU = Procyon.Their simultaneous rising could not have hap-pened in places of the region of Euphratesbefore Era Vulgaris. Then it is clear that theahamesh of tablet K 2894 must be taken in avery large sense. Unless one would not admitthe identity of the names proposed above.

However, if the ahamesh is referred not tothe daily rise, but to the yearly heliacal rise, forthe latitude of Babylon one gets that in the pe-riod -500 to +2000, the difference varies withinless than three days, and as Schiaparelli clari-fied in his papers on parapegmata, the varia-tion of a phase might reach two or more days,depending on the atmosphere, the local condi-tions, the visual acuity of the observers, the az-imuth difference between the star and the Sun.

A clarification is in order. The authoritativeCAD, the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, lists

Fig. 4. Syrius and Procyon simultaneous risingfrom -500 to +2000.

many variations of the meaning of ahamesh,that range from “together”, “side by side”, “atthe same time”.

The determination of star names inBabylonian astronomy, for certain ideograms,is still debated. One item is just the identifi-cation of Procyon, that currently is listed in theCAD, in the Concise Dictionary, in Goessmann1950 and in Kurtik 2007. The interpretation ofID.HU as Procyon given by Schiaparelli canbe considered valid also in this case; the al-ternative proposal, Altair, is not acceptable, asthe heliacal rising between Sirius and Altairis about six months apart, hence there is noahamesh. Kugler (1913) made a systematicsearch of stars setting or rising together, (seep. 17), as we shall see in a moment.

It is to note that the rising of Sirius wasconnected in Babylonian astronomy to thedates of the equinoxes, and lists are found intablet BM 36731 (Neugebauerb 1967), butonly at present, by the study of the BabylonianDiaries by Sachs and Hunger, it can bestated that the linear scheme used to computeequinoxes is not faithful, whereas the obser-vations preserved are more reliable (Hunger1999; Neugebauer 1975 at pp. 363 and 707).Therefore it is important that Schiaparelli an-ticipated the unreliability of some cuneiformtexts for what concerns observations versustheories. Delambre (1819) had developed sim-ilar formulae using ecliptical coordinates, andhad shown that, contrary to the initial opin-


ions of the discoverers4, the bas-relief of theDendera zodiac does not represent actual ob-servations of simultaneous heliacal phenomenaof alpha Tau and alpha UMa, as these wouldhave occurred at Thebes only in +1667, not inAncient Egyptian epochs5

Schiaparelli had gone a step forward, be-cause his algorithm gave directly the latitudeat which the phenomenon could happen, andfor Sirius and Procyon indeed we obtain 35.1◦.Nineveh was at about 36◦. The conclusion ofKugler was that “this research was perhaps themost difficult in the field of investigations ofthe Babylonian celestial topography”, thoughmost fruitful. But Schiaparelli was not scaredby the difficulties of identification that he en-deavoured to solve, with good results; and thehistory of mathematical astronomy is based onsuch type of calculations of specific events, be-sides the study of ancient theories.

Sirius, of course, has always attracted theattention of learned people (see Panaino1990), and Schiaparelli also paid his tributewhen translating in a very elegant way theverses of Hesiod about that star, or in “Rubracanicula” (Schiaparelli 1998), an excursuson the color of the star from Hesiod, Aratos,Homer and the Egyptians too. Thus, amongstthe many duties, he observed intensely, dou-ble stars especially, gave lectures, publishedessays, always with a line of thought on thesubjects that he was collecting for the theoryand use of the history of Astronomy.

Just a further note: Fig. 5 shows thetranscription, transliteration and translationof a part of the tablets later called “ofAmmizaduqa”, where the motion and phasesof the planet Venus are described. Schiaparelliwrote an important essay, Sui fenomeni del pi-aneta Venere, reprinted in Schiaparelli (1998),III. This tablet is still studied by assyriologists,

4 Especially Letronne, Biot and others that sug-gested years from -2000 to +500. A summary inBoll (1903) and Gundel (1992).

5 Kugler (1913) made systematical calculationsfor tablet BM 86378 (MUL.APIN). My computing,made differently, gives good agreement,e.g for epsCyg and alp Aql the date is Darius I 21 IX 15 = -500 Dec 10; with Schiaparelli’s formula the latitudeis 23.1◦ (that is 1.4◦ less than Babylon).

Fig. 5. Part of the Tablets of Ammizaduqa, afterSchiaparelli.

Fig. 6. ZAL.BAT.ANU

with various interpretations, still debated, be-cause they might mark the epoch of the firstAssyrian dynasty, even if from 20 to 40 per-cent of the data are wrong, as Huber (1999) hasshown.

One more topic about Assyrian-Babylonian astronomy. In his paper “Leopposizioni di Marte secondo gli osservatoribabilonesi”,Schiaparelli (1908) deals againwith the tablet K 2894, published by Bezold(1888); the star-planet was attributed by someAssyriologists to be either Mercury or Marsor even Sirius. Babylonians already calledthe planet Mars “kakkab la minati”, the starthat cannot be computed, Plinius (nh 2,157) added “maxime inobservabilis cursus”,and Needham (1959) reports that as SimaQien wrote, the planet’s irregular path andvisibility increased its study. In BabyloniaMars had a special importance, as the letters ofscholars testify (Parpola 1993). Years before,Schiaparelli listed in his “Notebook”: “Is itmaybe a planet? Nibatanu?”

Now he clearly states that it is Mars.It is well known that the oppositions ofMars were fundamental to determine its orbit,from Babylonians to Ptolemy and, especially,Kepler, and also at present celestial bodies, as-


Fig. 7. Motion of Mars, tablet K 2894.

teroids especially, are observed to this purposeat oppositions.

The tablet mentions the word then translit-erated NI BAT A NU, NI BE A NU, or ZALBAT A NU. Schiaparelli maintains that it isMars and shows why, also because he quotesthat Mars has the largest variations of magni-tude . He translates the lines 15-18:[when] thestar of Mars becomes powerful, its brightnessincreases 7 days, 14 days, 21 days this planetrises shining 7 days, 14 days, 21 days goesback, then completes its prescribed path 40kaspu the two runs, 60 kaspu the [three] runs. It refers to the retrogradation of the planet,even if the numbers seem too exact, at first.

Actually, Schiaparelli remarks that thesedata change at every opposition, and as a meanvalue of the path of retrogradation considersthe “runs” as in the figure he draws, wherethe parts AB, BC, CD are equally extendedin longitude. Moreover the planet cannot beMercury or Venus, that while retrograding havea very weak light . He used Mueller’s formulato compute the magnitudes. The conclusion ofSchiaparelli is correct, although for readers of“Scritti” an update is in order.

It was in a letter to Kugler, then consideredthe “number one” in Assyriology, (3 Feb 1909,the draft in Italian is in the Brera Archive) thatSchiaparelli informed him that having over-looked a separation sign (a vertical wedge ofmany meanings), he had not noticed that thenew paragraph was not about Mars, but re-ferred to Sun and Moon. Indeed, as in manycuneiform ideograms, there are several homo-phones to which various meanings are related,and in this case the sign can be read “di”, unity(1 or 60), “ana, umma” (if), or the beginning ofa new sentence . However this “error” was not

Fig. 8. Letter of Schiaparelli to F.X. Kugler(3 Feb1909).

infrequent. Kugler (1913), at p. 17, quotes thatthe same error was made by E.Weidner, withsimilar references to Sun and Moon. Thereforethe error of referring the “kaspu” to Mars canbe eliminated.

After one hundred years, the knowledge ofcuneiform is very much improved, and one canimmediately say that “S. albatanu” (as it is nowtransliterated) is certainly Mars, as it is con-firmed in many tablets.

For a better understanding, Fig. 9 showsMars’ oppositions in the Babylonian period,from -700 to -685. The figure shows the datesof oppositions at the corresponding heliocen-tric longitudes, the minimum distance Mars-Earth reached, and the apparent diameter of theplanet. Using Mueller’s formula m =−1.30 + 5log r∆ + 0.01486 i, where i =acs (r2+∆2 + R2)/ (2r∆), I have computed the magnitudes of theplanet for the perihelic opposition of -696 July16, at 7, 14 and 21 days before and after the


Fig. 9. Mars’ oppositions from -700 to -685.

Fig. 10. Mars’ magnitude at opposition of -696 July16.

opposition, and one can see that the changeof magnitude follows at its maximum a quasiparabola (better, a sinusoid).

Moreover, enlarging the part of maximumbrightness, we obtain the relation mentionedby the Babylonian text. The same occurs as amean value of other cases of perihelic opposi-tions.

All this to consider the difficulties of theearly assyriologists, and how Schiaparelli usedvarious methods to get once again correct re-sults a century ago.

To conclude on Schiaparelli’s knowledgeof ancient astronomy, it is remarkable his

Fig. 11. Schiaparelli announces the discovery of as-teroid Hesperia

deep study of all the publications available,as we can see from his “Notebook”, wherehe flies from Delitzsch to Craig, to Jensen, toThompson (for the paranatellonta especially) .

3. Modern astronomy

From Antiquity to modern times, I would liketo shortly consider now some professional as-pects of our astronomer. An example that isworth quoting, is the discovery of the aster-oid Hesperia, and the determination of its orbit.And this is a direct involvement in the historyof Science.

As announced in AN 55,(1861), No.1309,277, Schiaparelli discovered the asteroid on1861 April 26, while he was looking for thenewly 63 Ausonia that A. De Gasparis haddiscovered at Naples. He saw the two bod-ies separated by about 10′, and actually themodern computed positions at 19 TT give adistance 0.1398◦ = 8′23′′. Being concernedthat the opposition of Hesperia had alreadypassed and that with his telescope the aster-oid was at the limits of visibility, on May 2he wrote to the Astronomische Nachrichtenand to Father Secchi to invite further obser-vations with more powerful instruments (Thecorrespondence lasted until 1878 and includedthe famous letters with Schiaparelli’s theoryof comets and meteor streams, see Buffoni,Manara & Tucci 1990a,b).

Thus, observations of Hesperia were madealso by Secchi at Rome (May 7-June 26),by Donati at Florence (May 7-June 27), byRespighi at Bologna (May 9-June 27), by Otto


Fig. 12. Orbit calculation of Hesperia bySchiaparelli.

Struve at Pulkovo (May 9) and by Foerster andTietjen at Berlin (May 6-June 8). An excel-lent example of international cooperation of as-tronomers and of mail (of that time, withoutInternet).

Fig. 11 from the diary of observations,shows the last page of the preparatory calcu-lation, This copy (Brera Archive, busta 377)was believed to be of an unknown author, butAgnese Mandrino confirms me that it is the au-thentic writing of the young Schiaparelli.

The above elements were publishedin AN 55 Nr.1311(1861), 237-238, fromSchiaparelli’s letter of May 22, with a searchephemeris. The orbit was called “paradoxeBahn” by the astronomer, who wrote thatit needed strong corrections, but believed ituseful for an ephemeris to search the “planet”,as the asteroids were called at the time.

Schiaparelli remarks that since May 11,1861 he did not see the asteroid any more; thisbecause of the decreased magnitude (12.0 ac-cording to AstDys) and the limitations of hismodest instrument,but the third position forthe orbit was supplied by Respighi. In his ob-servation logbook Schiaparelli drew maps ofHesperia from 1861 April 26 to May 11 and

Fig. 13. Path of Hesperia and Ausonia, bySchiaparelli

from May 24 to June 7 that have been dis-played at the Exhibition in the Brera NationalLibrary this year. The maps still bear the for-mer number 67, and the legend “Esperia orInsubria?”. Of course they are very accurate, aswe can see. In one also the path of 63 Ausoniais shown.

By numerical integration I have recom-puted using Vitagliano (2000) the orbital el-ements and the position of 69 Hesperia at theepoch of discovery and the most recent ones.The comparison of the osculating elements bySchiaparelli and the modern ones shows thatalthough refinements were needed, the ele-ments were sufficient to compute ephemeridesfor research observations.

It is also to take into account thatSchiaparelli, as astronomers until not muchago, used only 3 observations to compute hisfirst orbit, while for the modern elements manymore are used6 besides the computation ofperturbations, hence the results of the old as-tronomer are excellent indeed. One should notethat when the chase for asteroids began, notonly powerful instruments were needed but ce-lestial maps as well, that showed stars of highmagnitude, in order to locate the new small”planets”. And it was for this reason that Gauss(1804) developed a method to find the lim-

its within celestial zones where the new bod-

6 AstDys numbers 1368 observations up to June1, 2010, only 78 being discarded to compute the or-bital elements.


Fig. 14. Variations of the eccentricity of Hesperia

ies could be found after discovery, thus reduc-ing the research tentatives. Incidentally, bothHesperia and Ausonia rose simultaneously in1861 at Milan, thus favouring the discovery.

Numerical integration also allows to eval-uate and graph the variations of the orbital el-ements for long time intervals, a type of cal-culation that was almost impossible in 1861.The evolution of the orbital elements for morethan 8000 years shows that the asteroid is verystable, even if there are oscillations of some el-ements due to perturbations.

Even if with oscillations, the eccentricitydecreases; the graph shows the behaviour ofe from -52000 to about +7000. Inclination in-stead increases, with an analog behaviour ofpeaks and valleys. Concerning apparent angu-lar conjunctions, Schiaparelli was lucky thathe could observe Hesperia on 1861 April 26,due to its closeness to Ausonia and a lit-tle serendipity. Actually, I calculated the con-junctions Hesperia-Ausonia in longitude, from1610 to 3000, but the earlier ones are 1701November 14 separation 0.591◦ 1861 April 270.119◦. Next one will occur only on 2363 April17 with separation 0.051◦ and will be reallyvery close. Hence, it would have been quitedifficult to discover Hesperia at Schiaparelli’stime, if the conjunction of 1861 had escapedthe Brera astronomer.

Just a note. Asteroid 4062 Schiaparelli, wasdiscovered by the Observatory S. Vittore ofBologna on 1989 Jan 28. Its next opposition

Fig. 15. Orbits of 69 Hesperia and 4062Schiaparelli.

will occur on 2011 October 13 at magnitude15.5, next on 2013 April 5, magnitude 17.1.

Finally, I would like to conclude that asan historian of Science, Astronomy especially,Schiaparelli used his best qualities of as-tronomer, mathematician, scholar of languagesand theories, thus making an optimum use ofwhat we now would call interdisciplinary cul-ture.

Acknowledgements. My thanks are to AlessandroManara and Ginevra Trinchieri and the OrganizingCommittee of the Congress for inviting me, toAgnese Mandrino for having put at my disposalthe relevant documents of the Brera archive, toGian Pietro Basello for help in the translation ofcuneiform, and, especially, to Jean Meeus, who withhis astronomical competence is always ready to giveme his sound advices.

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the Star KAK-SI-DI, Proceedings of theSociety for Biblical Archaeology, vol. X,March 1888

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